It’s harvest time on the farm, which means many growers are reflecting on their planting season. For those looking to make improvements to the 2017 planting experience, John Deere is ready with updates to the MaxEmerge 5e row unit. I got to take a look at the row units at the Farm Progress Show and Product Specialist, Austin Verbeck took me through it.
The MaxEmerge 5e is a 5 meter unit with electric drive options, getting rid of the chains and sprockets and all that mess. Now one electric dive, motor, and unit row controller offer more consistent population control. That’s especially true around curves, where the outer wings and inner wings adjust to maintain the proper population as they circle around.
“So that’s probably one of our biggest enhancement to our Max Emerge 5e is our population consistency,” Verbeck told me, “but we also have some additional features for model year 17. We have our individual row hydraulic down force, so the operator inputs his target margin from the cab and each row will adjust the appropriate down force automatically as it goes through the field.”
Pneumatic closing wheels have also gotten a lot of attention, partly, Verbeck believes, because they can be retro-fitted to an older machine. With the economic conditions affecting farmers the ability to update an older machine is valuable. These closing wheels are fitted with airbags that can be adjusted from inside the tractor’s cab. They offer more settings for greater variability and provide more consistent closing. They’ll also notify you right away if something goes amiss, rather than finding out at the end of the row– or later!– that something sprang loose.
Verbeck says the most important thing he wants growers to know is that John Deere is focused. With 4 key areas, accurate population, accurate spacing, maintaining uniform depth, and hitting the proper planting window a John Deere planter is designed to ultimately get you that even emergence.
Learn about all their solutions to get the most bushels to the bins in this interview with Austin: [wpaudio url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/zimmcomm/FPS16-JohnDeere-Verbeck.mp3″ text=”Interview with Austin Verbeck, John Deere”]
2016 Farm Progress Show Photos
